How to Get & Optimize Time

How to Get & Optimize Time

 

There's only one thing more precious than time, and that's how we spend it! This month we will look at how our “thinking” about time translates into how we spend and optimize our time. A poll of 2,000 people showed that the average person spends nearly 12 hours a week wasting time. That's 624 hours per year! Even though you live your life by what your clock says, how much time have you taken to consider your experience of time? Whether it's time spent at work, with family, or on to-do's, with only so many hours in a day, finding out how you're spending your time can determine how to maximize time.  Here’s how:

  

What Do You Use Your Time For?

 

Project deadlines, social engagements, and household tasks are examples of the never-ending time demands in our busy lives!  Time is our most valuable asset, so it’s critical that we understand what we’re using our time for.   

 

Make a list of everything you spent your time on yesterday.  It doesn’t matter if it was a work day or not, record how you spent the day.  Be sure to include things like driving, eating, thinking, buffering, sleeping, and screen time.  The more detailed you are, the better! 

 

What Are Your Thoughts About How You Spent Your Time?

 

The truth is, most of us don’t live our days deliberately.  We look up, and the day is gone with very little care about how we spent each hour, and each hour is truly a gift!  Look at your list and complete the following:

 

Write down your thoughts about how you spent your time.  If you could go back in time, would you spend your time differently?  If so, what would you do differently? 

 

Reexamine Your Days

 

Let’s pretend tomorrow is your last day.  How would you spend the last 24 hours of your life?  I know it sounds extreme, but most of us don’t have the gift of knowing when our time will be up. And what you learn from this exercise could change your life! 

 

Write down how you would spend your day, and don’t skip this step!  Be as detailed as possible.  Doing this will help you examine what you would create with your most valuable 24 hours. Living with intention minimizes regret and wasted time and puts you in the driver's seat of your life!

 

How Do You Think About Time?

 

Great job! Now let’s keep the momentum going!  Look at your list and see if you can uncover your thinking patterns, don’t overthink it!  

 

Here are some prompting questions to get your wheels turning as you write:

 

  • What do you believe your time is for?
  • Do you believe you have enough time?
  • What takes up your time and why?
  • Why do you spend your time the way you do?
  • Time goes by fast when…
  • Time goes by slowly when
  • What do I believe about my past?
  • What do I believe about my present?
  • What do I believe about my future?
  •  If I had more time, I would…
  •  If I had less time, I would…

 

Put Your Thoughts About Time Into Action

 

Are you surprised by what you uncovered? I know I was.  When you use the model, you will start to understand how you spend your time is determined by the way you think, and the way you think and spend your time will determine the results you get.  This ultimately means that our thoughts determine our time. Ask yourself, "what do I want to change about how I think about time?"

 

What Costs You Time?

 

Why does one hour ‘feel’ different from another? Because time is a mental construct.  How we think about our actions determines how fast or slow time goes.

 

Here are some of the most common ways we cost ourselves time:

 

  • Worrying
  • Buffering
  • People pleasing
  • Indecision
  • Confusion
  • Judging ourselves and others
  • Regret
  • Overwhelm

 

As a life coach, I work with my clients to create more time by reducing time-wasting activities like those listed above.  How? Through mind management.  For more information on why we hold ourselves back, check out my Navigating the Roadblocks to Action blog!

 

How To Create More Time

 

Now that I have shown you the things that can cost you time, I will show you ways to start creating time. I know from experience that these actions work! When you develop the skills to remove time-wasting activities, your quality of life will improve!

 

  • Make strong decisions
  • Take massive action
  • Plan, the more specific the goal or task, the better the result
  • Honor your plan
  • Constrain your focus on one thing at a time 
  • Fail because it prevents you from being stuck so you can learn and move on
  • Say no and take responsibility for your actions, not for how others feel

 

What Do You Want to Use Time For?

 

I have simplified what I want to use time for into one sentence. I want my life to be an example of what is possible. I honor how I spend my time by

overdelivering to my students and clients, having free time to think and read, getting lots of sleep, and time with my husband and kids. Knowing what I want to use my time for prevents me from doing wasteful things like people-pleasing or buffering. 

 

Now it’s your turn. What do you want to use your life for? When it comes to time, what do you value? What don’t you want to waste time on anymore?

 

Next Week - We are going over my Monday Hour One and Friday Hour Done processes that will teach you how to start your week with intention and purpose and end it feeling refreshed and ready to celebrate!

 

Summary

 

If you want to start loving yourself by taking control of your thoughts and emotions, join our 3-day event, Mind Over Matter, where you will learn an operating system that creates SELF control fast. This critical curriculum is long overdue for most people, as formal education systems fail to teach these life skills. The SELF control operating system has unlimited applications and mind-blowing effects. Register now to save your seat and receive the recordings if you can't make it live. This program will be the best $27 investment you'll ever make. Today is the day you stop thinking of yourself as the problem and believe in your SELF as the sustainable solution.